PARIS — The Team USA women’s 3×3 team started the Olympics slowly, but they’ll end it with a bronze medal around their necks after a 16-13 win over Canada on Monday.
Facing Canada, whom the United States had beaten by a single point in sudden-death overtime in the pool round, the Americans ran out a starting lineup of Cierra Burdick, Dearica Hamby and Rhyne Howard, with Hailey Van Lith coming off the bench.
Canada struck first, with Michelle Plouffe draining a long 2-pointer. Van Lith scored Team USA’s first point with a nifty turnaround jumper in the paint. Howard followed with an easy jumper from the free-throw line to tie the game at 2.
The teams traded points, and early on, the United States’ superior defense compensated for their lapses on offense, like shot-clock violations and easy turnovers. The 12-second shot clock proved a problem for both teams, as slow-to-develop plays ended in turnovers. Canada rode a couple of cuts to the basket to a 5-3 lead a third of the way through the game.
Canada’s Kacie Bosch knocked down another left-side 2-pointer to extend the lead to 7-3, but Van Lith and Howard curled in shots in the paint and a nifty jumper from the elbow to cut the Canadian lead to 1, 7-6 at the halfway mark of the 10-minute game.
The United States tied the game at 8 on a long Howard jumper. As the sun dropped below the Paris skyline, the United States faced a do-or-die situation for a medal. A long Paige Crozon 2-pointer and a Michelle Plouffe drive extended the Canadian lead to 12-9 with three minutes remaining.
A technical foul with just over two minutes remaining allowed Van Lith to pull the United States within one, and seconds later, she tied the score at 12 with a massive drive to the bucket. Michelle Plouffe and Katherine Plouffe combined for a point and an assist, and the United States answered immediately thereafter.
Hamby gave Team USA its first lead of the game with just over a minute remaining at 14-13. Burdick converted one free throw to give the United States a 2-point lead with 39 seconds remaining, but missed a second that could have staked Team USA to a three-point lead.
Canada’s frantic 2-point shots ran long, and clutch rebounding by the United States put Burdick at the free-throw line with seven seconds remaining. She hit the first to put the U.S. up 16-13, then followed that up with a miss. Katherine Plouffe’s frantic two-point shot rebounded long, and the U.S. claimed the bronze medal.
This qualifies as a massive turnaround for a team that looked like it was in real trouble as recently as Thursday. Team USA dropped its first three games of the Olympics, to Germany, Azerbaijan and Australia. Wins over Spain, France, Canada and China (twice) put the team back on solid footing, however, and into position to fight for a gold medal. But a semifinal loss to Spain in overtime on Monday sent the Americans to the bronze medal game.
“It was like a roller coaster of emotions,” Burdick said after the game. “Obviously, you’re really, really low after that Spain game, and it took a lot of mental toughness to just kind of have short-term memory, bounce back, and be able to grid out this win. So I’m grateful to be going home with some hardware.”
‘We knew that it was one-and-done, even after our 0-3, it was pretty much one-and-done for us,” Hamby said after the game. “If we had another loss, we were probably going to be out, so just [showed] incredible resiliency and confidence.”
The United States faced troubles before the Olympics even began. Cameron Brink’s torn ACL cost her a spot in the Olympics, and Howard was still shaking off ankle issues even as the Games began. The team lacked the cohesion of other squads, yet managed to come together at the right time to put together a closing run.
The women’s team found far more success than their male counterparts, who could only manage two wins against a tough field. Both squads aren’t yet producing at the level of Team USA’s 5×5 teams; the question now is whether this is a matter of coaching, personnel, training, financial support, playing opportunities or some combination thereof.
“Not the medal we wanted, obviously, but I don’t want to take away from the moment,” Burdick said. “A lot of gratitude. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears were invested into this. That’s so cliché, but it’s so true.”
As the other medal games played on behind her, an exhausted Van Lith wrapped herself in the American flag. “I’m most proud of us for this last game,” she said, “because we went from … getting our gold medal dreams crushed to having two hours to turn around and play one of the best teams in the tournament in Canada. That game was all about mental toughness. And we really got it together. We showed mental toughness. And we won ourselves a bronze medal.”
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